


I: Saint Jude

by LuckyFeedback



Series: Under and Through [1]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Game: Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24703102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyFeedback/pseuds/LuckyFeedback
Summary: Under and Through is a collection of short stories about the UBCS Mercenaries from Resident Evil 3 - who they were, what they did, and how their fates intertwined within the walls of a doomed city.
Relationships: Carlos Oliveira/Jill Valentine
Series: Under and Through [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785910
Comments: 28
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

_“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby  
  
_

The dead were no longer moving, and Carlos didn’t trust it.

Like a lawn after a rowdy party, the street was littered with scattered remnants of the night’s uproar; broken glass and spent brass bullet casings glittered under oily yellow street lights. Toppled barricades made from cars and boxes and signposts spilled across the wet sidewalk and into the road. Stray newspapers, soggy and translucent under the gentle patter of rain decreed things like **“RIOT!”** and **“UNREST!”** in large, bold letters, crying out for someone, anyone, to listen. A desolate howl of autumn wind carried the sharp, sweet smell of gasoline and charred meat.

Carlos stepped onto the street, his boot heels scuffing on the wet pavement. The radio nestled within his ear crackled to life, signaling an incoming transmission with a soft, robotic _bwoop-bwoop_.

“Carlos? Carlos, come in.” A female voice, clear and direct.

“Jesus Christ.” Carlos let out a sigh and with it tension he was unaware he’d been holding. He pressed a small recessed button on the plastic earpiece, spoke into the grated receiver at the end of a thin fiberglass headset arm. “Jill, I’m on my way to your location. Where are you?”

She didn’t respond. A loud pop, the sound of the radio hitting against something. Carlos jerked his head back.  
  
“Really, you’re going to crap out on me _now_?” Jill’s voice was frustrated, tense. “God damn it.”  
  
“Welcome to Umbrella,” Carlos mumbled to himself. He waited for the radio’s frequency range to return, peering at the dark clouds, the color of iron against the night sky. No moon, no stars by which to navigate. Great.  
  
A sudden and squalling wall of noise overwhelmed the radio’s speaker, blaring across the airwaves in a cacophonous shriek of metal and breaking. One final rush and clatter of activity, popping and fuzzing, a heavy thump. Silence, the gentle white-static crackle of nothing at all.  
  
“Jill? Jill, _come in_. Jill, do you read?”  
  
The silent seconds stretched into minutes. Carlos waited against the nothing, hoping for a far-away curse, a snippet of conversation — _something_ , some further sign of life. He watched his surroundings with distrust, took a careful advancing step over the body of a young woman who was missing most of her head. The gray-pink tumble of her brain matter spilled onto the black asphalt like food from the mouth of a cornucopia, open and presenting its bounty. The rain carried her blood towards a sewer grate, patches of blonde hair streamed in the direction of the water as if waving goodbye.  
  
The silence from Carlos’ radio ceased for a single, fortuitous moment. Under the crackling static, the heavy, low toll of a bell sang its solemn song to mark the hour: one, two, three, four, five. It sang to a broken city, no ears to hear its message of hope, deaf and gone. Except for him.  
  
Carlos ducked into a nearby doorway, pushing open glass doors with his forearm. The store appeared empty save for two bodies that he could see, still and quiet against the checkerboard floor tiles. Carlos combed the store all the same, turned and swept the dark and broken interior with his flashlight; he rolled the corpses with his boot, one man, one woman, their peaceful, pale faces to the sky. Neither moved. He lifted overturned racks of food and cheap plastic toys under the bright blue neon glare of a sign that signaled _Beer & Cold Drinks_, an icy sheen thrown over his damp skin.  
  
Satisfied that he was alone, Carlos unfolded his map of the city on the cashier’s counter, illuminating its grids and spider-web streets with his flashlight. He searched for a pen, shoving aside cash registers and receipt printers, and found a thin plastic marker with a black cap.  
  
“Bells,” he said to nobody in particular, drumming the pen against the counter. Did schools have bells? Churches? Town square landmarks, maybe? It could have been a fucking overturned firetruck, for all he knew, but he had to start somewhere.  
  
Raccoon City was not a large city — nothing like Carlos’ native New York, not even like his home borough of the Bronx — but it wasn’t a one-horse shithole, either, which meant combing it would take time and resources he didn’t have. He would need to choose two or three sites to search, flag his best bets, get in and get out, regroup if necessary. Carlos used the marker to circle the two Catholic churches within the city limits and one other freestanding structure: Saint Michael’s clock tower, a tourist trap surrounded by restaurants and shops that oversaw a man-made river. Drops of rain fell from his hair onto the map in tiny, dark, expanding circles while he worked.  
  
Carlos stood from the map, gave his work another once-over. He had a plan to follow, something tangible and controllable. Direction made the situation seem a little less chaotic, a little more hopeful. He folded the map back into a bulky rectangle, and slid it into the pocket on the side of one of his thighs.  
  
Before departing, Carlos checked the store for what resources remained. There wasn’t much; a few packages of beef jerky pinned under a fallen display shelf, but the real prize presented itself as two plastic bottles of water in an employee fridge in the back. He chugged one of the bottles in a single go and used the remainder to top off his canteen. The brass had warned them not to drink water from the local supply in this godforsaken place — it was a “suspected transmission vector” for the virus, and not worth the risk. Not drinking the water would have been doable for a day, maybe two. A day or two was all they planned for, in and out. But now the week was marching on, and just staying alive required heavy physical effort. If the hungry packs outside didn’t turn you into brunch, death by dehydration had become a real and serious concern.  
  
On his way out the door, Carlos spotted the dead woman’s purse, baby blue with a cartoon elephant embroidered on the front, but it contained nothing of note. Diapers and an empty sippy-cup. Carlos realized with belated horror that there was no corpse of a child inside this store, blood-streaked and silent as a tomb. He pushed the thoughts, the intrusive images, out of his mind. Some things were too much, even now, but still something near his heart lurched at the senselessness, the cruel lack of intercession.  
  
Whoever was responsible for this, whoever allowed something like this to happen... even if he caught up to them, Carlos didn’t know what he could do. He was one man, alone. Not an army. But Jill... Jill would know. She would be the first step. She would know what to do. She had to.  
  
Carlos checked the compass built into the hilt of his combat knife, waited for the needle to stop spinning, and was gone into the black of early morning, the birds outside singing their careless dawn serenades.


	2. Chapter 2

The hours marched forward into the punishing brightness of morning with Carlos empty-handed. 

Carlos decided to search the farthest church first — an hour and a half by foot, if he had to guess. His plan, as far as Carlos planned anything, was to hit the most distant target while he was still fresh, hydrated and uninjured, circle around, and end the route as close as possible to the police station where Tyrell waited. He could call in backup that way if he needed to, which became more likely the longer his foray into the city took.

Carlos’ long, marching, businesslike strides ate the miles. The hard soles of his boots clomped against the blacktop, a solid and authoritative sound any other time, now reduced to a lonesome, tapping echo. He followed the painted center line of the road for so long that he thought he’d lost his way, stopped to check his map and verify he was following the route as laid out. Time became fuzzy and malleable against the abusive brightness of the sun and the unfamiliar backdrop, repeating in a rotating series of scenes: overturned cars, broken fences, and pockets of fire consuming small buildings, licking at the sky in angry, dancing wisps of orange and red. 

Then there was the heat. It started warm and gentle on his skin, but now felt like mounting trouble, stagnant and greasy, hovering over and against him, never blowing past. A heat wave at the end of September wasn’t unheard of, and even the frigid, snowy Northeast had to deal with these last, vengeful, dying kicks of Summer before Autumn really grabbed on. This situation was different in a few key, and unlucky ways: Carlos pushed against the humidity while wearing seventy-five pounds of equipment in the form of a heavy, plated flak vest, weaponry, _and_ the day promised non-stop cardiovascular ass-kicking. The dark tangle of his chest hair was already swampy with sweat, hot and wet and sticky under his shirt. He would be a walking deodorant ad by the end of the day if the humidity promised by the looming early-morning sun was anything to bet on. These were all best-case scenarios, too, what would result if luck decided to favor him. Carlos reached back, where his canteen dangled over his hip, and shook it. Half full, maybe. Not enough. Not for the whole day. And not enough for two people, if he found her. _When_ he found her.

As Carlos progressed through the city’s broken streets, over toppled candy-stripe police barricades, under overturned vehicles and fences, _they_ watched him, dark lips and broken teeth shiny with frothing slobber and blood. Slack, lolling gray-blue faces followed Carlos with hungry, slavish attention. At first there were few, busy with what shards and scraps of meal they’d found on these clotted streets, paying him only cursory recognition as he passed. But as Carlos continued, their numbers grew in patches and tangles, one here and two there became groups of three, then five, then ten. With no meat to distract them, their numbers outstripping the available nourishment on this particular street, a few of them stumbled to give lazy and eventual chase on unsteady feet. Carlos couldn’t be sure if he’d found his way into a colony of them, specific to an event or location, or if what he was looking at were the remains of the people who once called the city home, forced out of their hiding spots for food and supplies. He wasn’t sure which was worse. 

Their numbers grew and within a blink there was a wall of _them,_ a wall that stumbled and closed on him in a staggered crescent, reaching to him as if for help, mouths open and singing a dumbstruck song of confusion and hunger.  
Outnumbered, his luck having hit a dry stretch, Carlos retreated. He tested a door behind him, rattled the knob, and ducked into the skeleton of an apartment building, looked for anything to block the door behind him. He found nothing, and broke into a cursing run, boots pounding hard against the packed gray carpet underfoot. 

The door which he’d retreated through slammed open in the distance, and in an almost cartoonish twist of poor timing, Carlos was presented with a dead-end. No exit, just a brick wall painted in a thick layer of inoffensive off-white, smeared with a vital swoop of dark blood. Two options forked before him: an elevator to his right, placid and waiting in its metal carapace frocked by black iron filigree, and a staircase to his left, blocked off by a heavy metal door. An unfortunate stick-figure on the door held his stumpy arms aloft, robed in a plume of cartoon flame: “Fire Escape, _KEEP OUT_ ”.

Carlos chose the stairs, pulled the door open and leapt them four steps at a time. His hand grasped the railing to keep his heavy forward momentum from flinging him sidelong into one of the cold cement walls. He hit the first floor landing, stopped for a breath, and peered into the tall rectangular window on the entrance door, checked for movement. The bright red _EXIT_ sign above his head flickered and buzzed. No people, or things that once were people, presented themselves in the tiny sliver of the hallway visible from the window.

 _Bwoop-bwoop_ sang the radio nestled against the inner tunnel of Carlos’ ear. His breath pounded ragged from his throat, and he pressed the pad of his middle finger against the button on his ear piece, turned to check the momentary emptiness of the gray staircase.

“Read you, go ahead.”  
“Just me, kicking the tires,” Tyrell’s voice was raspy and tinged with the faintest shadow of a Southern accent. “You good?”  
“Negative. Stand by, I’ve got a situation here.”  
“Copy that. Watch your six, man.”  
“Yeah, you too. I’ll call when I’m clear.”

 _Bwoop-bwoop_ , and the radio was silent. Carlos braced for a fight: he checked the ammunition loaded in his weapons, checked for the comforting, cold metal presence of the cylindrical grenades clipped to his belt. He turned the knob and it clicked, refused to rotate. His closed his fingers around the knob, rocked on his feet, readied himself, and waited; when the door below him sounded with the animal drum beats of hands against metal, Carlos shouldered the door open in one swift battering motion, landed against the far wall of the hallway, hands first. He ran sidelong to the window at the end of the hall in galloping steps, checked the street outside. More bodies still filed in beneath him, pushed each other out of the way to follow their friends, interested to see what morsel had attracted so much attention. In the distance, Carlos spotted the church, a towering white castle that crested the horizon, its pointed steeples topped by glimmering crucifixes sparkling in the morning sun. 

This floor was maybe twenty feet off the ground, a fall too far to be sure of a safe landing, especially when weighed down. More armor meant more protection, and when you were Explosives Ordinance as Carlos was, any barrier between you and the bombs you both disabled and detonated was a good thing. But more weight meant more chance of injury from falling, getting tired out faster, greater chance of drowning. Any number of shitty ends. As it stood, this window was his only chance, and after a swift count, the numbers of the dead outside had been reduced by an amount that made the risk worth it. Carlos scanned the street for something to block the door; his eyes fixed on a flatbed truck, brick-red and eaten at the edges with rust, leaned on the pale cement. 

From some paces away to his left, a growling noise, wet and soft, perked Carlos’ ears. He turned, his gun braced against the broad, packed muscle of his shoulder, when he spotted the thin, stumbling body of a small boy. The boy wore pajamas; cartoon illustrations of the Power Rangers on his chest, leaping in technicolor action poses, were almost unrecognizable from the dark spill of congealed blood that dangled and and sloughed from the space where the boy’s lower jaw should have been. He stared at Carlos, unblinking. His bare feet pattered against the carpet. Carlos’ guts locked in a clench of shock and dismay. A cold chill peppered the back of his neck.

“ _Accchhh_?” The boy hissed as he drew closer, the sound of a question. His small hands dangled at his sides.

Carlos was pinned. He looked to the window and then the advancing child — no, not the child, the _thing_ , the dead _thing_ that would rip out his throat and drink from the arterial spray like a fire hose on a hot day if it could. For a helpless second, Carlos’ hand betrayed him and refused to move. At the last five paces, when he could smell the sickly sweet rot off the thing’s body, Carlos aimed down the iron sights of his rifle, shot two quick rounds into the thing’s head. Its small body spun backward through the air, arms spread and limp, and then crashed into the carpet, face-down. Carlos set his mouth in a line, his breaths fast and ragged, then leaned to the side and threw up in an acrid blast of tepid water and bile.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Carlos said as he wiped his mouth. His voice shook.

Carlos turned, pushed the window open, and gave the tiny body one last look before he swung one big leg over the windowsill, and pushed himself out the window to the ground below. The cement came fast and unforgiving, and Carlos landed in a hard, crashing roll, ending on skinned, bloody elbows and forearms on the street. Pieces of gravel and needles of glass screamed in the raw flesh of his arms, and for a moment, he was certain he’d broken something — a shoulder, maybe, or one of the thick bones of his upper arms. When the world eased back from its tilt-a-whirl spin, Carlos scrambled to his feet, made to run to the truck, but his legs would only operate at a hobble. He fell against the truck’s door, pulled it open, set the gleaming chrome gear-shift in neutral. With a quick look over his shoulders, Carlos sidled around to the truck’s tail end, placed his back against it, and pushed his feet against the concrete with all his might. The truck rolled and complained all the while, in a series of squeaks and halts.

“C’mon, you piece of shit,” Carlos groaned through gritted teeth, “now I see why the left you on the fucking road.”

Once the cabin was in place, forming a barricade over the only entrance or exit to the building, Carlos locked the truck in park, cranked the emergency brake’s solid lever until it would move no higher. His lungs, sore and raw, his arms, his knees, his head — all of them yelled at him to stop, to slow down, to rest. Carlos stumbled forward instead, towards the glimmering Gilead in the distance, his strides now a slight limp. He’d come too far to slow anything; time was not on his side from the outset. He could rest when he was dead, which might be sooner than he’d realized.

Carlos pushed the button on his headset.

“T, come in.”

He watched the remaining dead turn and regard him with a breed of baleful interest. Carlos staggered forward, shook the pain out of his knees and his arms, forced himself to walk. One of them, a woman in a bloody waitress’ uniform, hissed at him, a foamy splash of yellow fluid spilled from her mouth to the asphalt.

“Yeah?” Carlos said as he passed, “Go fuck yourself.”

“Copy. You there, Carlos?”  
“Yeah, it’s me. You read?”  
“Loud and clear. The hell happened?”  
Carlos swallowed, the sour taste of vomit on his breath. “Not important. T, this city is in the shitter. It’s getting worse by the minute. They’re fucking everywhere. I haven’t seen a single live person since I left.”  
“Hey, if I was one of the unlucky bastards still sucking air in this place, I’d probably be holed up with my mouth shut too. Guess that means you didn’t find Jill?”  
Carlos was quiet, tried to put his thoughts into words. “Not yet. I heard her over the radio. It sounded bad.”  
“Hm. She say where she is?”  
“No, but… I heard bells. Like a church, or somethin’. I’m checking the area. We’ll link up with you when I find her.”  
“Copy that. Be careful.”  
“Yeah. You too.”

The trek to the church was tense but unremarkable. The sun beat down in earnest, the humid, still air thick with the chittering of insects and the singing of birds. The building and the grounds around it, from a close vantage point, were a vaulted, lofty sight, white and gold and grey all over. This city loved their intimidating, dated architecture. The Gothic sensibility of the angles and lines struck Carlos as strange and jarring, perhaps even — though he couldn’t locate the word and didn’t spend enough time thinking about it to care — pretentious for the Midwestern rustbelt, like a painting where the expressions were just a _bit_ off, smiles just a _bit_ manic, a “help me” instead of a sign of happiness if you looked for long enough.

Carlos ducked around the side of the building into the shadows, gun clutched in sweaty palms, walked leg-over-leg, cautious and slow. Fallen bodies dotted the landscape, reclined in festering pools of clotted, rancid blood under black clouds of flies that buzzed and swarmed. The bodies were picked clean, flesh torn away with animal gash marks, nothing left but streams of fatty ribbons over bone, strips of clothing and hair. Carlos stopped and nudged at them with his boot, waved the flies away with a testy swat of his arm. Upon examination, the clothing and the patches of hair sometimes came close in color or dimension, but none of them were her. 

Carlos backtracked to a door, humble and regular-sized, on the side of the building, and rattled the gaudy gold-colored knob. It was locked tight, and he found himself not for the first time wishing he’d brought Tyrell along. Not only would the company be nice and the extra firepower be useful, but Tyrell’s fast fingers and specialized equipment made locks look like a joke. Old or new, complicated or simple, with him around they became a formality, not a barrier. 

Carlos had no such skill. He took a step back, lifted a boot, and kicked the door directly beside the knob. The door broke free from its lock, still engaged against the wall, now jutted inward like a broken tooth. The door swung open, and banged with a loud, dissonant metal clatter. Carlos bent his knees and hunkered behind the sights of his rifle, a slick-looking, matte black piece of machinery, state of the art and as suited for the theater of intimidation as it was for violence. He crept into the dark, hollow cathedral, movements slow and calculated. The air was still, hot and dusty, heavy with the smell of varnished wood and mothballs.

“UBCS!” Carlos yelled, projected his voice. “If there’s anyone alive in here, come out now, we’re here to take you to safety!”

Polished marble floors reflected Carlos’ voice, his calls bounced off paneled wooden walls. The echoes died into silence, ominous and complete.

Carlos searched the premises with careful attention. He stopped to check the surroundings over his shoulder every few seconds, ears tuned for the sound of scuffling feet. Each time, he turned to emptiness, alone with the sounds of his breathing and the soft clatter of his equipment. The absence of _them_ didn’t make him feel safer; it made him feel off, unsure, as if the stakes had changed without his knowledge and something nasty waited around the corner to pounce on any complacency. The only sign someone had ever been here, ever prayed to the large brass-and-wood crucifix of Jesus on the back wall, was an inlaid fountain behind the altar. The fountain reminded Carlos of one of those large, circular, cascading numbers in shopping malls you’d flick pennies or nickels into, lit from underneath. The water still bubbled and trickled at the statue’s feet. 

He swept the pews and their inky blue shadows, under and over. He looked under the white marble altar and behind draped velvet curtains in the slanted stained-glass light from high windows, under dancing motes of ancient dust. Top to bottom he searched, and found nothing except cheap plastic tables and chairs, old linens, a children’s education room with cartoon sheep painted on the walls. No food, no water, no people. Empty.

Carlos stood in the massive, hollow room, in the center of the main row between the wooden pews, gleaming with polish. He fished the folded paper map from its home in the large pocket on the side of his thigh, and drew a final, resolute “X” through the image of the church in which he stood. There were two options left - either the next door held some kind of clue or solution, or the Clock Tower was the goal. One or the other, kill or cure.

Carlos hit the button on his headset again, and Tyrell answered.

“Not here,” Carlos said, “I’m onto the next. You holding up okay?”  
“Physically? Yeah. But it’s a shit-show, top to bottom. I’m trying to reach Bard, got his IP address, but he’s not responding.”  
“His what?”  
“Nevermind. Just get it done quick and get back here. I got a bad feeling.”  
“Copy that.”

Carlos took a draw from his canteen, leaned against one of the church pews in a brief moment of respite. A glimmer off the metallic sheen of the crucifix suspended high in the air caught his eye. He glanced up at Jesus’ face, the pain and desperate confusion as the statue looked to the sky. A sudden, uncomfortable feeling made him look away, and he shook his head.

Carlos was getting distracted, as he often did. He had to keep his mind on the mission at hand. With little effort or resistance, in his moments of reprieve, his mind went to her; the blue-grey of her eyes, sharp and attentive, always watching, always looking at you like she was trying to pry some kind of answer to an unspoken question from your face. Most of all, he missed the towering sense of inevitability that followed her, in that way you could miss a drug you got one particularly good hit of and then never tried again because you _knew_ you’d be hooked through the vein. That feeling surrounded her; the feeling that wrongs could be made right, that there were still people simply watching out for one another. She made sense. This new world, violent and despairing, may never have made sense to Carlos — but she did.

If the question was, _What the fuck are you doing?_ , there was his answer: Carlos was chasing that high. 

__

He rubbed his face, stood up from the pew, and limped towards the open door, a long rectangle of the noon-day sun cast across the dark floor in a blazing slice. The next place either held the answer through omission or confirmation. There would be an answer, soon. He had to hold on to hope it was one he wanted to know.

__


	3. Chapter 3

The scream was what attracted Carlos’ attention to the second church. 

The building was so unlike the first: a tall, narrow, brown structure, perched on high granite steps, sandwiched between other buildings as if its construction was an afterthought, a way to fill leftover space. Carlos would have missed it if not for that scream, a shrieking, agonized peal of sound that jolted his attention the side in such a sudden movement that it sent a bead of sweat rolling into his eye. If there was a bell, there was no tower that housed it, at least that he could see. But no doubt, this was the place.

Carlos ducked into the alleyway between that strange brown temple and the brick building beside it. Cloaked in shadow, he crept around the corner.

The scene Carlos found was more like an epilogue, playing out under the jangling, arrhythmic song of pounding hands against a chain link fence. The fence sat atop a short, squat concrete barricade that separated the church and its small, rectangular parking lot from the structure behind. The lot was empty save for a short white bus, parked with polite deference between two painted white lines. The bus rocked on haunches that squeaked and protested under insistent blows; throaty voices droned in a call to whatever was inside — _come out, come out, wherever you are, we just want to talk_. Those hands, shiny and slick with blood, left paw prints on the bus’ white carapace. 

A tangle of _them_ crowded around a fallen form further ahead, in the corner of the lot. They tore and lunged and growled at their quarry, pushed each other out of the way like starving dogs, ducked their heads and hands and returned with mouthfuls of torn red meat and dancing ribbons of blood. An overturned plastic container, bright red and white, like the kind you’d fill with gas or kerosene, sat toppled on its side, just out of reach of an outstretched hand. The hand’s owner was pinned beneath the huddle. Their limbs twitched and trembled against the cement. 

“Jesus Christ,” Carlos mumbled to himself and took half a step back, the back of his hand against his mouth. He was not weak of stomach: four years in the Marine Corps in different theaters of war had shown him its share of human cruelty, the ways a human body could be reduced to fine pink mists and chunks of meat under the correct amount of firepower. Two and a half years in the in service of Umbrella had compounded the experience, where the witness of living things being chased down and blown apart — things that should _not_ have lived, granted — had become commonplace, just another day at the office. Since he’d turned eighteen, Carlos had either found violence, or violence had found him. But now, just shy of twenty-seven, it made even less sense. The rank magnitude of human suffering Carlos had seen here… any one of these scenes might have been the most traumatizing thing a person would see in their entire life. For him, it was repeating, over and over, in vivid living color and surround sound.

Carlos looked away. He checked his ammunition, made sure his extra magazines were in reach, that his footing and path of escape were clear should retreat be necessary. The fence was too close to use a standard frag grenade; he’d run the risk of tearing down the barricade and having all those freaks spill into this tiny area, and if he was unlucky (which seemed to be the case in recent days), he might toss that thing a smidge too hard, bounce it back, and blow up the fucking bus. An incendiary was also a bad idea; imagine all those same freaks, still hungry, but now they were on fire. Any number of ways a grenade could take this scenario and turn it into an absolute nightmare, but it also gave him an idea.

Carlos patted the back of his belt, felt for the hard coldness of cylindrical metal. When it rested in his hand, Carlos threaded a finger through the open, circular keyhole that jutted from the top, yanked it free. While he waited for the count of five, he placed the middle finger and thumb of his free hand between his lips, and whistled. 

Figures slack-jawed and barren faced turned to him, glassy eyes rolled in sunken sockets until they settled on their target. 

Carlos tossed the cylinder underhand in a roll; it skipped and clinked along the cement, popped into the air and exploded in a flash of ringing, piercing light. When the flare faded, the dead stood and cowered and pawed at their faces, dumbstruck, and shook their heads as if to dislodge the blindness. From this close, with no moving targets, picking them off was easy; they fell under the staccato reports of his handgun, one after the other thumped to the pavement, somehow limp and rigid all at once.

Carlos checked his targets, circled around and drove the blade of his heavy combat knife through soft, sunken temples, made sure the job was done and no unexpected guests would descend upon him while his back was turned. After the last, he scrubbed the blade of his knife on the thing’s checkered shirt, squeezed as much of the gore off as he could before he returned it to its home in a leather sheath at his lower back. Carlos rose to his feet and walked to the prize that was under _them_ , a man, bearded and powerfully built and very dead, the cavern of his belly torn open. A trail of beefy pink intestines and a froth of yellow subcutaneous fat lie around him like a wreath. The pumping arteries in his neck were torn away in two spots, and the wet bone of his spine glistened in the afternoon sun, pavement soaked with the tang of coppery blood. His jaw worked, dying nerves twitched and seized in what looked like silent words.

“Jesus,” Carlos said. “I’m sorry, man.” He fired a single shot into the man’s forehead. The body jumped and fell still, a coil of smoke twirled from the small black hole between his eyes. Just then, a quick, erratic movement plucked at the corner of Carlos’ vision — a girl, blonde and slight, gasped from behind one of the buses’ windows and ducked out of view a beat too late to avoid being seen. Carlos walked to the side of the bus; his tired steps crunched and scraped against the gravel underfoot. Carlos squinted into the glass door of the vehicle, cupped a large hand over his eyes against the sun, and then rapped on the glass door with his knuckles. 

“It’s alright, you can come out,” he said, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

All was still and silent from inside the bus. Carlos sighed, a grumbling noise, and knocked again, harder this time. He didn’t have time or room for finesse, and much less for distractions such as these.

“Hey, little blonde lady? I know you’re in there. Come out and I can help you, but I ain’t gonna stand out here all day playin’ hide and seek.”

Three people — a woman and a man, both solid of build and advanced in age, and a blonde girl whose youth and skeletal-slightness painted a picture of opposites — unfolded from their hiding spots, hands held aloft, faces frightened. They stared at him, fearful eyes set on his pistol through the glass. Carlos peered around the perimeter. _They_ were numerous, but also still caught behind the thin, rattling links of the fence, for now. He returned the pistol to its home on his hip, and waited. Even after his gun was away, the figures inside the bus continued to stare at him. He cleared his throat and indicated the door of the bus with a series of brief, sarcastic points of a finger. 

The man seemed to remember himself and scrambled forward, hit a wide plastic plunger on the buses’ dashboard. The door rattled and folded open in an accordion stack of glass and metal. Carlos stepped onto the bus, and the door shut behind him with a hiss of hydraulics.

“W-we don’t have anything,” the older woman said in a stammer as Carlos walked down the center aisle towards them, “no money or bullets or anything like that, but we have food inside if—”

Carlos held up a hand in a silent, dismissive gesture. Hold on, it said.

“Easy. It’s okay, I don’t want your stuff. Just here to look for a friend I lost, then I’ll be on my way.”   
“Are you from the Army?” The blonde girl asked, timid, as if scared of the volume of her own voice. She wore a floral dress that was modest, maybe even a touch matronly, stained under the arms and over the collar with rings of dark sweat. Her hair was tied back tight, and baby-fine pieces that escaped in whatever struggle they’d endured ringed her face in an erratic wildness that, paired with the wideness of her eyes, made her look unhinged. A gleaming cross necklace laid against the blood spatters on the shirt of her dress.  
“Well, I—” Carlos started.  
“Of course he is, Rosie, look at what he’s wearing.” The man answered.  
“Uh, well, I—”   
“See? I told you the Army would be here. Didn’t I?” The older woman turned to the man, nudged him hard. 

Carlos felt it best to be silent, rubbed his hairline with the tips of his fingers while their conversation continued. When their talk ceased, he spoke up again.

“I’m lookin' for my friend, Jill. Short white lady, brown hair about here,” he gestured to jaw-level with one hand held flat, “blue eyes. Any of you seen her?”

The three were quiet in a way that gave Carlos pause. 

“I _think_ I saw her…” the man said, “there’s a few injured people inside that haven’t woken up yet. Maybe in there.”  
“She might be inside,” the woman said, in nervy agreement, “she sounds familiar, at least. Help us gas this thing up and we can take you to look.”  
Seemed reasonable enough to Carlos. “Lets get it done while we can. Areas don’t stay clear for long around here.”

The sidled out of their hiding spots. To his surprise, they stopped before him, as if waiting for orders.

“I’m guessing that’s the gas out there.” Carlos said, indicated plastic tub on the ground, bright red against the faded pavement.

“George, the… the man over there in the corner, he had it, before they… well…” the woman trailed off. 

“Sorry about your friend. That’s a rough way to go.” Carlos looked at the man before him. He had thin salt-and-pepper hair and a clipped mustache, the round heft of his belly highlighted by his dress shirt, tucked into his pants. His expression was wide-eyed and nervous, but attentive. “What’s your name?”

“Richard.” The man offered. 

“Richard. You grab the can and gas it up and I’ll keep them off you as long as possible. And you…”

“Debra.” She was the largest of the three, solid and wide with thick arms and large fists, the sort of powerful women came into when they’d reached a certain stage of motherhood, the _I’m the real boss here_ stage that came equipped with zero fucks about how anyone else saw them.

“Debra, you take Rosie and get up the stairs and inside as fast as you can. We’ll be right behind you, so be ready to bar that door as soon as we hit the inside of the church.”

Carlos asked them to repeat their orders; they did so with no trouble or confusion.

“Perfect. Look, I know it’s scary, but we’ve all gotta do exactly what our role is, ‘cause when we break from it for any reason, we—”

“End up like George.” Rosie said, “On the ground.”

“ _Rosie_!” Breathed Debra, scandalized; Rosie recoiled. 

“No, she’s right,” Carlos said, “that’s exactly what happens: we end up like George. Now George might have been a cool guy, but we don’t want to be a George. We ready to go?”

“Y-yes,” said Richard, an undeniable shake in his voice, “let’s get it done.”

Carlos clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Okay, Rosie, you hit that switch on the dash to open the door, and be ready to run, on three. You got it?”

Carlos counted to three. Rosie hit the plunger and Carlos was down the steps and on the ground, circled the bus with rapid, sure steps, his rifle at the ready. When he rounded the corner, five of them had made their way around the chain link barricade, around the neighboring building, and to the far mouth of the alley. They stood in loitering stillness, their heads bowed and knees knocked, until the sound of his footsteps against the silence perked their attention; slow but sure, they started towards him. Their friends took note of their path, watched. Soon there would be more.

Carlos checked his back to make sure Richard was behind him; he was frozen, rooted to the ground, his round face wide-eyed. Carlos bent his knees, braced himself, and let loose three bursts of gunfire; spent brass bullet casings sprayed into the air and fell to the cement with a musical jingle.

“Richard, the can! _Go_!”

Richard’s attention, snapped back to the present situation by Carlos’ voice, focused on the can on the ground. Richard scrambled to it, scooped it up. As he worked, he recited a prayer, quiet and frantic. 

Carlos checked over his shoulder. Debra banged on the tall wooden doors with a fist, a terrified Rosie clutched her chest and watched the scene on the ground unfold with her mouth slack.

“Is it clear?” A voice from beyond the heavy door yelled, muffled by the inches of solid wood.  
“It’s clear for now, open it!” Debra yelled.   
“What do you mean ‘for now’? They’ll get in! I can’t!”  
“OPEN THE DOOR!” Debra yelled, pounded with both hands. At the sound of her voice, another cluster of them took note from behind the fence, raised their eyes with guarded interest.  


The final body of the advancing group caught a clattering three-round burst from his throat up to the top of his head, which popped with a sick, unceremonious squish, and toppled. Sure enough, where there were five now there was over ten. They looped around the building beside at the sounds of gunfire; gunshots meant something tasty was alive and kicking at the darkness somewhere, trying to keep its vital bits a part of its body and out of your mouth. Like a dinner bell, those cracks split the silence and often led crowds of them right to you, sometimes from miles around, depending on how the wind blew. He thought this would be a quick job so the rifle was a better choice. The pile of advancing bodies assured Carlos whatever he’d thought, it was wrong.

Carlos reloaded his rifle with quick, sharp precision and resumed firing into the crowd, a writhing, loud thing in its own right which ate both his bullets and the precious feet between them, and still persisted, dogged and infinite.

“Debra, how we doing on the door?” Carlos yelled, an edge of impatience to his voice.  
“They won’t open it!” The first stragglers of the dead hit the corner of the wall, their numbers now visible to the women on the stairs. Rosie gasped, her hands over her mouth, and Debra grabbed her in a desperate hug, pulled her close.  
From behind Carlos, Richard said, “Empty, it’s done!”  
“Get to the door,” Carlos told him, “I’ll cover you as long as I can until they get it open.”

Carlos threw everything he had at the crowd; grenades sailed through the air and exploded in shaking eruptions of shrapnel; endless streams of bullets, fired into the oncoming crowd in a blinding dazzle of muzzle flashes. The moment they fell they were replaced, trampled underfoot, another pair of grasping hands, another needy mouth ready to take their spot. The crowd was too numerous, the space too enclosed, his ammunition too limited; for a brief moment, Carlos’ brain courted the realization that his luck hadn’t hit a snag. That, this time, caught between the solidity of the door, shut in simple human refusal, and the writhing tangle of limbs and hungry mouths that bore down on him, it had run out. Now _he_ was next on the buffet line, like so many before him who’d considered themselves too competent to make mistakes. Wrong place, wrong time, the cruelest mistress of them all.

One grabbed Carlos’ arm and he smashed it with a thunderous right hook; the structure of its face gave under his knuckles in a loud crunch, the sound of breaking bone. A spray of black blood clotted with teeth freed by the blow flung backwards over the crowd, the body was thrust in the same direction in an awkward tumble. If he was gonna be a meal, he was gonna be a spicy one, the kind that kicked all the way down your fucking throat.

At the last moment, a heavy, clattering scrape and a great thud sounded from behind the doors of the church. They creaked open, with a long, high, almost questioning noise; hands extended outwards from between them, human hands that grabbed onto people and herded them inside. One grabbed Rosie by one of her narrow, veined wrists, and she was gone. 

“Come on!” Richard yelled to Carlos from the stairs, waved him forward with one arm. Carlos ducked a pair of grasping, oncoming hands, darted across the parking lot in a sprint, and took the steps in two long, upward lunges. He was grabbed by his arms and pulled inside, sent in a spin to a stop against something hard and angular that jammed into his spine.

The door shut with an echoing slam. Carlos and two of the younger men leaned their weight against it on sweaty shoulders and upper backs; three others, including a man who wore a Priest’s habit, struggled with a long, heavy slab of wood which slid lengthwise into a series of iron hooks. They stood back from their handiwork, those with guns brandished them in palms that shook and trembled. As sure as the sun rose and set, a slam shook the door. Then two, then three, then a chorus of them rattled the wooden planks on their hinges. The long piece of lumber that barred the door jumped and shook in protest.

“You got a second level in here?” Carlos yelled, over the noise.  
“Y-yes,” the priest called, “the staircase, over there.”  
“If this barricade breaks, you _run_. Does everyone got that? Get to the stairs and I’ll cover you.”

The people were silent, tensed to bolt. They watched the door; the rod that blocked the door bent and groaned and chipped away at the edges into a wreath of sharp splinters. Dust, shaken from the door frame, puffed into the air and fell in drifting clouds.

Then, the banging stopped in a gradual reduction as the crowd outside lost interest. The silence trembled and a bead of sweat ran down the back of Carlos’ neck, traced his spine in a chill swoop that made him shudder.

All was silent. The group, one by one, turned to one of the young men — a menacing sight, Carlos thought, not unlike the hordes outside once they’d fixed their milky eyes on a target. When he noticed that he was now the center of attention, the kid offered a shaky, defensive flurry of stammered apologies and excuses. Debra rounded on him, and struck his face in a slap that sent a squeal of shock and discord through the crowd. Carlos winced, and the Priest wedged his tiny, frail body between them, offered her words of calm and rationality. 

Concerned with this momentary tidbit of human drama, the crowd ignored the newcomer, and Carlos tuned out their yelling and arguing. He searched their faces for familiarity, and came back with nothing. Six people, middle age or better, and three teenagers, none of which were Jill. Carlos sat on one of the high-backed wooden chairs that faced into the aisle, and waited for a break in the action to request someone who could guide him to the promised infirmary. Once the threat of physical violence had died, the priest disentangled himself from their orbit and approached Carlos, his footsteps quiet. 

“Quite a scene,” he laughed, dusted his black robe as he came near. His face was wrinkled and lined beneath a pair of large wire-rim glasses, his voice warm and comforting under the reeds and shakes of age. He extended a hand, bone-thin and liver spotted. “Father Donovan. This is my congregation — at least, what’s left of it.”

Carlos stood and introduced himself, accepted Father Donovan’s hand in a shake. “We lost one outside,” he said, “George, they said his name was.” Father Donovan closed his eyes and drew a cross over his torso.

“A terrible thing,” Father Donovan said, “God rest his soul.”

“Not to change the subject, Father, but they told me you got some injured survivors in here.”

“’Survivors’ may perhaps be a generous title, if I’m being honest. Are you looking for somebody?”

“Jill Valentine — she’s a police officer in this city. STARS, if that rings a bell.”

“The name of the group, yes, but her… I’m afraid not. But you’re welcome to look. If you’re hungry, dinner is almost ready… such as it is.”

“No thanks. Not in an eating kinda mood. But I’ll take water if you’ve got it.”

“Of course.” Father Donovan evaluated the crowd with a sigh — they still buzzed and sobbed and snipped amongst themselves, the excitement dying but not quite burned itself out yet. “Rosemary, perhaps you might show Carlos to our infirmary. I would do it myself, but… well, just appreciate your knees while you still have them.”

“Yes, Father. It’s this way,” Rosie gestured with a point, and Carlos followed her. As they walked, he gave the church interior a evaluative once-over; the place was long and narrow and dimly-lit, the ceiling painted in faded portraits of angels, jeweled tones of dark blue, purple, gold, green. It was much smaller than the previous place, frocked with humble and well-used wooden pews and altars, no sliver of polished marble or gold to be seen. Carlos couldn’t place why, but something about this place, the mismatched color schemes the feeling of warmth worn into the wood through use, struck him as comforting, almost intimate. 

His attention drifted back to the girl beside him. Now that she was close, Carlos realized how _tall_ she was. He had always been a big dude, always the biggest of his friends, and had grown up knocking his head on doorways and having to reach items on high shelves for strangers. Even tall women didn’t tend to grow past the level of Carlos’ chin or nose, but Rosie only came under his height by a handful of inches, all angles and points on thin, fragile limbs, the cords at the backs of her knees and the knobby bones on her ankles visible as she walked. She seemed unsure about being given such an adult responsibility, and as they peeled away from the group, her silence was nervous and uncomfortable, fingers still trembled. 

They climbed a narrow staircase sandwiched between tall, dark walls. As they stepped onto the second floor, a tomb-silent hallway of varnished wood and off-white furnishings, the familiar queasy, buttery-sweet smell of infection filled the air, floated behind the scent of dust and age like a threat. 

Rosie held the door of a clerical office, or what used to be one. Roller chairs of itchy-looking maroon fabric were herded to one side of the room, tan cardboard boxes of paperwork stacked on a desk pushed against the back wall. Gentle slants of dim light filtered through gauzy lace curtains, and a large painting of a white woman with a heart-shaped faced and her hand held aloft stared at him, in an expression the artist probably thought placid and gentle, but Carlos thought looked more impatient and unimpressed.

On the floor were four figures, laid prone and unconscious, on makeshift beds of emergency blankets, covered by altar linens in the place of sheets, the thick and once pristine material now stained with drops and streaks of rusty brown blood and other fluids Carlos couldn’t place. Rosie said something by way of introduction — how they found them, perhaps, or their names — but Carlos wasn’t listening. He walked from body to body with concern that presented as impatience. None of them fit the description, but one last figure, small and covered from head to toe, points of a nose and breasts and feet poked against the cloth in the shape of a body, laid on the periphery, and something in Carlos’ chest lurched.

Carlos walked to the figure in a daze and knelt at its side. He grasped the cloth, and a sudden, crawling discomfort climbed his arm, settled under his skin, made his fingers tingle. One foot in the not-knowing and one foot in the hazy world of grief where she was already gone, Carlos hesitated. He swallowed, hard, and his dry throat resisted in a click.

“Are you okay?” Rosie asked. Her voice brought Carlos back to his current reality, this musty room, his audience of cardboard boxes full of paperwork, the death rattle breath of one of the people beside him.

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”

Carlos steeled himself, gripped the sheet, and forced himself to pull it back in a jerk. A small woman, dark hair cropped short in a pixie cut, lay on her back, eyes closed. Her tan skin was faded into the creeping blue-gray mottle of death, severe eyebrows tilted in what looked like sadness, her chest still. 

Rosie appeared at Carlos’ side. “Is this her?”

The air left his lungs in a gradual stream that was too sad to be relief. This woman’s face, in its bruised, receded stillness, told its own story. It swooped against his gut like a punch, stole his words. _Why?_ Said her sad face, the questioning part of her lips. _Why did this happen to me?_

Carlos had no answer.

“Not her,” he said, and pulled the sheet back over the woman’s face. “She’s not here.”

“Oh,” said Rosie, “I… I’m sorry.”

Carlos stood from his kneel, pushed up on shaky feet with a grunt, and turned to her. “Don’t be. Sometimes the wrong answer’s just as good as the right one. C’mon.”

As Carlos headed for the stairwell, his head bowed and mouth fixed in a line, she followed him. Her dress shoes clacked against the hard floor. “You said you’re leaving. But they’re… you saw. It’s not safe outside.”  
“I gotta try.” His tone was serious, resigned. “I can’t just leave her out there.”  
“Even with what just happened…?”  
“Especially with all of that.”  
Carlos was halfway down the steps when Rosie said: “You must like her a lot. To go back out there in this, I mean. I-I don’t know if I could do that. For anybody.”

Carlos stopped. He turned and the two shared a small moment of understanding, and in Rosie’s youthful honesty, she stripped away the complication adults seemed so intent to force on situations, even the situations that should have been simple. Especially the ones that should have been simple. 

“Yeah, I do.” It felt good to say it out loud, and Carlos smiled to himself, just a bit. “She’s funny, and brave, and smart. I think you guys’d like her, too.”   
“Brave like you, you mean?”  
Carlos laughed. “Rosie, she makes me look like a _chump_.”  
Rosie smiled a smile that didn’t quite make it into a laugh, passed him and continued down the steps. Her blonde ponytail bobbed from side to side as she descended. “Is she in the Army, too?”  
Carlos shook his head. The steps creaked under his heavy bootfalls. “She’s a police officer. But not a regular one, one of the special ones they call in when stuff gets really bad. The ones that rescue people and kick down doors and do all the cool stuff, like on TV.”  
“Oh! So she’s probably okay.”  
Carlos wanted to share her optimism. “Hope so, Rosie. I really do.”

They rejoined the crowd together, and Carlos found a gallon jug of spring water waiting for him on one of the pews. He cracked it open, refilled the two plastic bottles from this morning’s pit stop and then his canteen. Something in his face quelled Father Donovan’s look of optimism, buffed it down to an expression of somber understanding.

“I suppose she wasn’t there, then.”  
“No such luck, Father.”  
“I know you’re looking for someone. But if you care to stay, we’d happily have you. We’re readying to leave, now that the bus is fueled. Perhaps we could at least take you with us, if you have a destination in mind.”

Carlos thought about it. The idea of the raw altruism of seeing to the safety of a pack of innocent, helpless people pulled at the naive romanticism that lived, stubborn and untouchable, in the deepest whorl of his brain. His presence seemed to still them, the vulgar visual power of his mobile arsenal and the authoritarian press of yelled orders seemed to give them fire, direction. But Carlos was spoken for, his dance card already punched; there were people outside of this church who needed him, and with a desperation that was hard to overstate. 

Carlos’ mind went to Tyrell, sarcastic and mission-oriented, loyal and steadfast Tyrell, still out there, awaiting his return with the full faith there _would be_ a return. If they were going to get back home, if Tyrell was going to see his wife and his girls again, he would need Carlos’ strength and optimism, his refusal to give defeatism its quarter; if Carlos was to get out, he would need Tyrell’s resourceful smarts and freakish sense of direction. Carlos had gotten lucky so far, very lucky, but luck always, always ran out. This wasn’t a one-man job. If they treated it like one, that would be the fastest way to ensure they both ended up on the menu.

Carlos’ mind once again circled around to its universal, eventual stopping point, these days: Jill. He’d failed at protecting so many people already, but if he could save her, give her that last push out the door to freedom, that would be his contribution to the world, his good deed in this quicksand pit of suffering. The idea that he’d have to drop protecting the first group of actual innocents he’d encountered to levy that contribution didn’t sit right with him. He was sure it probably wouldn’t sit right with her, either. Perhaps he owed it to them, to _her_ , to try, as best he could.

Carlos rubbed his face. “You going near Saint Michael’s Clock Tower?”

It was Father Donovan’s turn to pause for thought, his expression confused. “Not exactly a direct route out of the city,” he said, “I’m afraid not.”

Carlos frowned, but he understood: similar predicaments, the predicaments of being promised to the safety of those under your care. The sudden, intrusive idea of Jill’s tiny body, cold and alone on the pavement, brown hair fluttering in the breeze like the feathers of a dead bird, waiting to be found by something monstrous and starving… a cold chill fired up and down Carlos’ spine like plucking, icy fingers.

“Wish I could, Father, but there’s someone I have to find. I think she needs m…” Carlos stopped, redirected himself. “I think she needs help.” 

“I see.” The priest’s expression softened in understanding. He bowed his head, untangled a tarnished golden chain from around his neck. A small oval charm dangled on the end. “I want you to have this. It’s a sigil of one of our Saints. For protection — both of you and your friend.”

Carlos was a man who’d never given religion or its trappings any serious thought for or against, other than whining teenage resentment when forced into a baggy suit and dragged to feasts on Corpus Christi by his mother. The symbolism held nothing for him, no sentimentality, no importance. To the priest the chain may have been some sort of protective talisman, but to Carlos, it was just metal, twinkling with the subdued, dull gleam of wear. 

“That’s real nice of you, Father. Shouldn’t you keep it? You’re not outta the city yet.”  
“I believe it will serve you more. Consider it a loan until we see each other again.”

Carlos didn’t protest; it occurred to him the gift was more for the Father’s peace of mind than for him, and he bowed his head. Father Donovan looped the chain around his neck and Carlos lifted the charm in his palm, looked at the engraving of the Saint, a stone-faced man who carried what looked like a righteous beat-stick. It made him laugh. Maybe fitting, after all. He tucked it into his shirt, the metal warm against his chest.

“Thanks, Father. I’ll keep it safe.”

Unexpected, the priest hugged him, and Carlos pulled him close with one arm. He expected to feel frailty, shaking bones and wilting grip, but was met with a core of wiry solidity. When they parted, the priest put his hands on Carlos’ shoulders and shook him, a gentle physical punctuation. “We will pray for her safe return. And for you.”

Once the coast outside was as clear as it would get, they made an executive decision to leave, now, before nightfall. Carlos helped them load onto the bus, carried their injured, transported their supplies while the people settled into seats, huddled against one another in fear. The engine rattled to life and they navigated down the alleyway, out to the street proper. Carlos walked beside the vehicle, made sure their initial path wasn’t clogged with bodies or fires or overturned vehicles. He gave the driver the all-clear, a pound on the side of the bus with a fist and then a thumbs-up. As the bus idled, soft chug of the engine against the ambient noise of the street, Carlos motioned for Father Donovan to open his window. Carlos walked to it, placed his hands on the metal jamb, and then lifted the chain in indication.

“Make sure you come get this when you’re safe. Looks expensive, and I don’t want the Vatican loansharks knockin’ on my door.”

Father Donovan laughed, and held up a hand in a wave. Carlos thought he saw a breed of sadness on his face as the bus pulled away, into the distance, and was gone into his memory. 

Again, Carlos was alone with the sounds of the city, the flutter of pigeons, the wall of silence that pressed from all sides. He took out his knife once more, checked the whirling of the compass needle, and when it settled on SouthWest, he took a deep breath. One last stop, and then, either way it went, they could kiss this hellhole goodbye. 

“Here we go,” he said, and once again, Carlos walked.


	4. Chapter 4

They had been briefed before landing, leaned forward with elbows on knees in the chopper’s passenger bay, straining to listen to Captain Viktor’s voice above whipping blades overhead. In his smoky gravel-shake of broken English, the Captain described Raccoon as “typical Midwestern shit-hole city — small, few people. In and out”. Images of a small town, people living in the dusty, flat spaces between Motel 6s and McDonalds and truck stops and pornographic book stores had emerged in Carlos’ mind, along with a phrase: _flyover country_. It struck Carlos as a strange, forgotten place to do riot patrol. Nobody came here. He’d bet even fewer people ever left. What the fuck was in _Indiana_ that needed protecting, let alone this much of it?

Carlos didn’t know. What he _did_ know was that he was wrong: this city was far from small, especially when traversing it on foot.

Carlos passed pockets of housing projects, red brick buildings with black iron railings and flat pavement for miles around, the barren landscape scattered with forgotten toys and bicycles. He passed proud white structures with domed roofs and fluttering American flags on metal poles, buildings that proclaimed things like _United States Post Office_ or _Oswell E. Spencer Courthouse_ in tall lettering over gilded doors. He passed coffee shops and book stores, movie theaters under blinking neon lights where he could imagine teenagers clustered around the entrances, laughing and loitering deep into the night. Posters of movies hung behind broken plexiglass frames under a marquee that read **Now Showing** , and one in particular caught his attention: _American History X_. 

Carlos focused on Edward Norton’s squinting, blood red face, and walked closer. He had seen _American History X_ on a date of all things, not so long ago. The lady had suggested it as she was “into dramas” and read good reviews in the paper. As it happened, Carlos was much, much more into sex with attractive women than he was critical about the media he consumed, so he’d gone along without investigation or complaint. After the show, they’d departed the theater too traumatized and depressed to chain the date into anything further, and had never seen each other again. 

It made him think, that poster, a black-and-blood red thread tying together two worlds. Had slight circumstances of birth or career been different, they could have stood outside _this_ theater making awkward departing conversation, its entryway empty and broken and collecting blown dirt. He could have stopped for a midnight slice of pizza at one of _these_ restaurants, the doors chained with thick iron links and padlocks. From behind a car, a figure that had once been a fat guy in a Grateful Dead t-shirt and a leather vest, his snow-white beard stained red and brown and black, staggered to a stand.

“ _Hyungh_?” It questioned, stumbled around the car’s perimeter the long way in its quest towards him. Carlos took one more look at Edward Norton’s scowl, then stepped off the curb and continued his walk.

“You got lucky today,” Carlos told the thing that followed him, pointed at it as he walked backwards, “it’d be your ass if I had the bullets, Jerry.”

***

As the day rolled on, blisters formed in needle-sore pockets along the backs of Carlos’ heels. The big muscles of his legs burned, and he _stunk_ : he could smell himself, sharp and unpleasant, his body somehow both gritty and slippery with sweat. Carlos grabbed the collar of his black t-shirt and wiped his face. It was damp, had stopped absorbing his pungent sweat hours before, but it at least made a decent squeegee. The first shower after this shit-show would be like a religious experience. 

Behind Carlos at about fifty paces, a trail of _them_ followed. At first there was just one, the corpse of the guy who’d followed him all the way from the movie theater. Carlos became fond of its perseverance in a weird, pitying way. Eventually Carlos started talking to the thing to amuse himself, telling it jokes. He talked to it about weird shit he saw in the city, taunted it to amuse himself, and when the laughter stopped Carlos considered the fact he’d lost his mind. Seemed like not losing your mind in this situation would have been the crazier thing, by his estimation. 

The road ahead sloped by such gradual degrees that Carlos didn’t notice he was climbing a hill until the big muscles in his thighs began to burn, his Achilles’ tendons complaining from use. He looked back over his shoulder; Jerry and Company were undeterred, though a few of them wobbled and another few lost their balance and fell.

“Come on, you sons of bitches,” Carlos said, “you want in on this buffet, you’re gonna have to work for your dinner.”

As the hill crested, Carlos pushed with the last of his physical reserves up its gradual summit. The towering architecture of a brown brick spire lunged to split the sky like the spear of a Titan, and he could hear the cold, silvery sound of moving water. A sudden breeze fluttered the thick, dark loops of Carlos’ hair, brushed against the sweat on his face and arms in a promise of relief. The idea of mirages came to his brain, visions built upon nothing but fatigue and desperation. Carlos rubbed his knuckles against his eyes and when his hands receded the building, tall and ominous, was still there. 

A truck, one of those huge orange-and-white ones people used to move house, had plowed into the tall brick wall that barricaded the tower from the streets, knocked down a small V-shaped part of its wall. The truck laid on its side, and from what he could see, the hole it made was almost completely blocked off by its trailer. Carlos got a running start and pulled himself up onto the side of the truck, climbed to stand on its creaking metal. From this vantage, the river behind the tower was visible, moving at a lackadaisical pace, glinting in the light of the sun which now started its descent, low in the sky.

The water was like nothing Carlos had ever felt, its salty coolness a welcome reprieve from the ominous press of dust and fire. Maybe he’d take a cruise when this was over. 

That sounded like a fucking _great_ idea. Maybe he’d take two.

Carlos jumped down from the truck, stepped over piles of loose bricks, and into the room flagged “Visitor Entrance”. It was decorated in opulent splendor, with paintings hung in gilded frames, candelabras that twinkled and burned down to nubs of white wax, antique globes and sculptures. His feet sunk into heavy, ornate carpets that muffled the sound of his boots. Bookcases stood on either side of the room, wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor, lined with countless tomes bound in leather. An antique typewriter, black and copper, waited on a polished rosewood table. “Please Sign In - Name and Date” said a small sign hung above the machine; Carlos peered at it and pushed one of the keys. It clacked against the paper with the slap of a mechanical arm; _C_. He finished his name and the date — _Carlos 9.28.1998_ — with a single finger.

“Huh,” he said, “that’s pretty cool.” 

The room was empty, save for two high-backed chairs covered with velvet the color of emeralds. They sat opposite each other, a marble chess set on the table between them. Carlos lifted one of the chairs — surprisingly light — and jammed it underneath the knob of the door he’d just come through. He fell into the other, let his head flop back against its luxuriant softness. Now that he was off his feet they throbbed and ached; the muscles in his legs and hips twitched in small, exerted spasms. He took a long, greedy swig from the silver mouth of his canteen, then pushed the button on his ear-piece.

“T, it’s me. You copy?”  
“Jesus, Carlos,” there was an edge of exasperation to Tyrell’s voice, as if speaking through a sigh. “You know how long its been since you called?”  
Carlos laughed. “You’re startin’ to sound like my mom.”  
“Pff. If I was your momma, you’d be a hell of a lot better looking.”  
“I’m at Saint Michael’s clock tower.” Carlos’ eyes traced the finery as he spoke. “Just got here. Last place on the map. This’s gotta be it.”  
There was silence from the other end, silence that lingered so long that Carlos made sure he’d let go of the button to allow incoming transmissions, when Tyrell’s voice spoke once again.  
“Look, Carlos, have you thought about what you’re gonna do if she’s _not_ there?”

Carlos hadn’t. He’d been avoiding the idea with studious intent, in fact. 

“I’m just sayin’. You’re doing a lot for someone you don’t even know. You think she’d do the same for you?”  
“I know she would.” Carlos’ reply was abrupt, his tone stubborn, even to his own ears. “She already has. And for you, too.”  
“Not trying to be a dick, but we gotta start thinking about our own extraction plan. You said it yourself, this place is in the shitter and it’s only getting worse.”

Tyrell was right. He had always been the sensible, sometimes even boring, anchor to the wild buoy of Carlos’ energy and fierce optimism. This was one of the few times Carlos fought against himself to listen to Tyrell’s advice, though he knew deep down in the basement of his heart that in this brutal honesty, the brutality wasn’t the point. It was concern, and maybe the translation was a little rough, but the message was loud and clear. 

“I know, man. I’m gonna take a look around and if I don’t see her… then I’ll make my way back.”   
“Keep me posted. And stay in contact more, ya dumb bastard.”

Carlos allowed himself ten minutes to rest. 

***

The place was fucking _huge_ , decorated in a lavish way that Carlos thought was more appropriate for a mansion, not a tourist attraction open to the public. How half of this shit didn’t get stolen without being bolted down, he didn’t know. He was most certainly too poor to be standing here, afraid he would break something irreplaceable.

“Different worlds,” he mumbled to himself, unsure where to look first.

The main hall was bisected by a massive wooden stairwell, deep brown-red, the banisters inlaid with intricate carvings. Carlos traced the woodwork with calloused fingertips, leaned in to take a closer look: knights and their trappings, shields, swords, suits of armor. Wall sconces flickered, casting a romantic, dim atmosphere over the plush oriental rugs and framed paintings and pieces of marble sculpture that sat on tables throughout the hall. The floor beneath his feet was tiled in what looked like pieces of milky green and white gemstones, the warm light sparking off of golden embroidery on tall drapes of silk and velvet. On each side of the hall there were three doors, set in thick, carved frames of that same shining red wood, shut against the splendor of the main entranceway. Beneath the main staircase and against the back wall, hidden as if in shame for breaking the atmosphere, was a metal door with a horizontal push-bar — EMERGENCY EXIT, said the letters printed on it in red.

The smell was… odd, and unexpected. Dusty, sweet incense, but with a subtle tang of brine, like vinegar. Something floated on the periphery in this grand hall, its splendor and fine trappings draped over something mysterious and unnerving. Carlos was reminded of childhood movies, where someone would tilt a suspicious-looking book and be thrown into a secret tunnel.

Carlos tried the knob to the first room, and it turned with obliging ease. Something skittered along the ceiling, then, caught the corner of Carlos’ eye in a flash of gold and brown. He looked up, tracing the architecture, searching the corners where the walls met. They were barren, empty. He saw nothing further, his eyes convinced, but his instincts disbelieving. He pushed the door open, slow and cautious. When he recoiled from the sight within, a sudden, shocked curse echoed through the hall. 

A body, clad in banded black armor sat at a long table. A shotgun sat in its hands, stock braced against the chair between the figure’s legs. It had no head, chunks and gritty splatters of red and black against the wall behind it, dashed across a painting of two women carrying water in pails. The body’s helmet, domed with red eye pieces that reminded Carlos of a housefly, sat on the table beside a single sheet of paper. A radio, still hooked to its belt, crackled and popped with the white noise of empty static, ghosts of what could have been words if they’d just been a touch louder, a touch more lucid. 

Carlos approached, and removed the shotgun from the body’s hands, watching the corpse all the while; the gun’s pump clicked, refused to move. Empty. He’d saved the last shell for himself. Carlos set the gun down, retrieved the paper, and read.

_Gamma Team, new orders as follows:_

_You are to secure Nest II entrance (2, Clock Tower). Priority is to be given to Umbrella employees and employees of subsidiary companies. Non-Umbrella employees as well as Umbrella contractors are denied entrance to Nest II and should be rerouted away from Saint Michael’s Clock Tower. Deadly force is authorized in securing entrance._

Carlos turned it over. On the back, written in a sharp, hurried scrawl:

_I’m sorry Josie_  
_They didn’t deserve any of this, but I think we did._

“Jesus.”

Carlos’ brain, already full to overflowing with questions, picked over the words on the letter as he searched the empty rooms and then climbed the stairs to the second floor. Nest? What “nest”? Did that mean Jill made it here but they’d turned her away, back into the danger of the city? “They” _who_? The company in this note wasn’t the Umbrella Carlos knew, and the information bounced around in his mind but didn’t absorb, like doubtful gossip. Sure, they hired guys like him to protect their investments when natural disasters and riots got too close — everyone did. _And_ they had sent in contractor teams with the sole order to rescue people, when they could have turned away and left the city and its people to burn. Carlos’ presence in this place was a testament to Umbrella’s beneficence. There had to be something else to this story, this story about nests. This can’t have been all of it.

Jill’s words echoed in his mind then, breathless with shock and frustration: _Are you fucking kidding me? You’re the ones that caused all this._

Carlos folded the note and tucked it into his pocket. She could shed some light on this when he found her. First things first.

The only room on the second floor had seen better days; its carpet was soaking wet, a massive hole where half the ceiling should have been. Pigeons perched on the broken cement and brick. In front of a second door leading outside, sat a bell, half-sunk into the wooden floorboards, metal gleaming dull copper against the sunset. It was half the size of Carlos’ body, and from the damage it had done to the ceiling, was as heavy as it was old. He approached and the birds took flight in a thick, plush flutter of batting wings and cooing. He squatted down, feet flat on the floor, found a good position, and pushed against the bell until the door was clear.

The door lead onto a great stone balcony. A toppled statue, blown off at the legs, laying stiff and disapproving across a bed of flowers attracted his attention first. Shotgun shells the color of blood littered the cement. Cartoonish explosion scorch marks in the shapes of stars dotted the ground. Crushed cars, buildings with their roofs half torn off or bent from some great weight upon them. Carlos’ brain worked, hooked through and dragged to the kingdom of Hail Marys and long shot chances. He tuned his radio back to Jill’s frequency, searched that room for the first solid thing he could find, and settled on a large copper statue of a horse. He hauled it to the balcony, placed it on the railing, then let it drop; the impact sounded over her radio, clear and close and impossibly loud, as it hit the ground.

She was somewhere down there, if she was still here. His mind rejuvenated with fresh victory, Carlos ran, back towards the emergency exit in the lobby, under the stairs. He sprinted and slammed open doors and leapt off staircases, his feet heavy against the floor, silence and care forgotten in his haste. From the ceiling, perhaps attracted by the noise, or by the smell of food, sidling from a position so close overhead that when it moved Carlos thought it brushed against him, unfolded a _spider_ — a massive, fucking car-sized tarantula, banded in gold and brown. Its eyes gleamed at him, green like glass, and it clicked a pair of mandibles, each the size of his forearm. 

He sighed, loud and sudden, a sound of disapproval rather than fatigue.

“You gotta be _fucking kidding me_!” 

The spider inched to him in a slink, tested the floor with its toes like furry mittens. It dripped mucous and fluid, crept towards him with careful fascination. He gave thought to vaulting the railing and just making a break for it, but it was too far. 

“Listen, fucknugget,” Carlos freed his knife and indicated the spider’s gleaming rows of eyes with its point, “you’re the _last thing_ between me and that door. Just… go… do spider things, somewhere else, and we’ll call it good. Good?”

It was not good. The spider reared up on its hind four legs, raised its front two in a sudden show of aggression.

“Oh, god damn it.” Carlos mumbled, his eyes wide in disbelief and the shadow of needy, spindling legs falling over his face.

The world tilted and spun, and Carlos hit the wall to his left, rocking a painting free. It fell on a corner of its frame, where it shattered against the floor. In the fray, his knife slipped and tumbled from his grasp; he groped for it but came up short, then was thrust onto his back, the back of his head knocking against the stone floor with such force that stars and swirls of color exploded in front of his vision. The spider pinned him, front feet pressed against his shoulders, snapped at the soft hollow of his throat with its mandibles, long and sharp like garden shears. Ropes of milky fluid that sizzled and smoked against the fabric of Carlos’ vest dribbled from its maw. 

In a fit of desperation as they descended, Carlos grabbed those bladed hooks in his fists. The spider tried to close its mandibles, leaning down to slip them around his neck; Carlos pulled them apart with all his might, muscles in his shoulders and arms shaking and protesting. He screamed and one of those hooks suddenly gave, bent away from the spider’s face, ripping out of the thing’s hairy flesh with grotesque _pop_ and a spigot of blue fluid. The spider backed away, screeched in pain.

Carlos huffed, stumbled to his feet. 

“Got your nose,” He gestured to the monster with the disembodied mandible, then threw it over the banister to land in a hollow click against the floor below. 

The spider lunged for him again and again; Carlos threw himself out of the way each time, landing in artless stumbles and crashes against the walls and banisters. He backed away from the approaching figure, his steps slow, and searched the landscape for any weapon he could find. His eyes settled on a marble bust of a man, beside him on a table, and then flicked back to the monster. 

It lunged a final time. Carlos picked up the statuette, hurling it with all the strength he had. The stone smashed into pieces, dead-center against the spider’s face; the monster fell to the floor, screeching, then jumped onto the wall, and skittered away down the hall. 

“Oh fuck no,” Carlos breathed and gave chase, pounding down the hallway, the spider’s _tikkity-tikkity-tak_ of tiny spindly feet clicking as it ran, “I fuckin’ warned you! The tooth fairy wants that other one! C’mere, asshole!”

It tried to change direction, to duck and crawl under the balcony. Carlos caught it by its back legs, hollow and chitinous, dozens of thorny, sharp hairs cut against his fingers. He dragged it back onto the balcony, threw it down, its long, grotesque legs splayed, then stomped on its head, once, twice, three times, until that face and its single remaining mandible were crushed in a spreading pool of blue blood.

Not satisfied, Carlos kicked its body. His adrenaline was spent, breaths ragged, lungs burning.

“Fuck,” he said, “ _fuck_.” He staggered away, stopping to collect his knife and down the stairs, towards the door, shouldered it open in his impatience.

In the hugest, universal, cosmic _fuck you_ Carlos had ever seen, standing between him and the other end of this escape tunnel was a wrought-iron gate lattice, massive and and black and impossibly solid. On the ground just inside that gate was a body, a body that at first glance looked more like a pile of clothes than a corpse. Carlos approached, slow and cautious, expected his scraping boots and ragged breaths to rouse it to its feet, expected a fight. 

It didn’t move.

In the years that came after, he could never quite recall what he first recognized in the blaze of that fading orange sunset; the sun striking against a sliver of white metal, strung with a black leather cord? Brown hair? A strong, angular nose?

Carlos’ mouth dropped open, words strangled silent. He tossed his gun in the first vacant direction he saw. It clattered to the ground, and he ran to Jill’s side, sliding in the dust and dirt on his knees. He called her name, shook her shoulders; her wiry body was limp, head lolling back and forth against the concrete. Trickles of dark blood flaked from where they’d run from her nose, her eyes, her mouth, her ears. Her skin was white as paper struck through with gray and the faintest purple, his hands dark against her chest. 

No. No, no, no, no. Not after this much work, not after all this faith, not when he was this close. Not now. 

Carlos scooped her into his arms, her neck in the crook of his elbow, and braced her against his knee. The proud structure of her chin was caked with a thick froth of dried yellow vomit, her eyes closed. He leaned in and placed his ear against her nose. Her breathing was faint, wheezing, irregular. But she was still breathing. Still fighting.

Carlos used a nearly-depleted roll of gauze and the last of his water to wipe her face, her neck, her chest, a wound on her arm which dribbled and drained in that same bloody yellow — an attempt to return her some modicum of stolen dignity. She lurched then, a sudden and sharp whimper of pain, her body curled against whatever solidity and warmth she could find. He wrapped her arm with the last of the roll and gathered her close. Carlos’ mind reeled and raced, scraped the bottom and sides of his knowledge and memory in a panicked whirl, came up with nothing. In reflex, he called Tyrell. Tyrell always knew what to do.

“T, I found her. I got her here.”  
“Holy shit. She okay?”  
“She’s…” Carlos looked at Jill’s face, her eyes pinched shut, eyebrows tilted in pain, and saw only the dead woman from the church, that honeycomb mottle that crept up her limbs to her face. Jill gasped. It sounded like a sob. “She’s infected. She’s — it’s bad, man. It’s really bad.”  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Tyrell whispered. “Are you gonna…?”  
“No. I… I’m gonna bring her to the hospital. Dr. Bard’s gotta have something for this, he’s…” Carlos trailed off. “Maybe he can save her. I don’t know, man, I—”  
“I got you, man.” Something in Tyrell’s voice was calming, steadying, that frosty, sarcastic edge absent, if only for a moment. “I’m gonna head that way now. Meet you there.”  
Carlos didn’t respond. He lifted Jill with him to stand, hiked her onto his back. She weighed more than Carlos would have expected. Her arms dangled over his shoulders, face leaned close to his. When stooped over to grab his rifle from where it lay on the ground, and a piece of her soft brown hair drifted against his face.

“Hang on, Supercop — I got you. Just a few more hours, and then we’re outta here. Just stay with me.”

Carlos took off in a run in the direction of the hospital, fatigue forgotten, Jill’s breaths soft and warm on his ear. She bounced and draped against him as he ran, and time lost its significance against that cooling September sunset; those reedy, uneven breaths became the metronome by which meaning was measured. 

Father Donovan’s necklace dangled, forgotten, against Carlos’ chest.

***

Epilogue

Roughly One Year Later

The knock on the door was firm and polite, loud enough to make Jill raise her head, sleep interrupted. Carlos’ eyes went to the door from the television, his bottle of beer paused in mid-drink. 

_“Maybe poker just isn’t your game,”_ slurred Doc Holliday from the TV set, _“I’ve got an idea! Let’s have a spelling contest!”_

“I got it,” Carlos said, “here, lay back down.”

“I’m awake now,” Jill groaned and pushed herself up to a sit, groped for the remote on the coffee table, and paused the tape; Val Kilmer froze in an awkward, between-frame expression of drunkenness. Jill pushed to her bare feet, rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the pad of a finger. Carlos’ leg was still warm where her head had rested.

She paused for a catlike yawn muffled against a hand, and then opened the door. Her expression changed, surprised and questioning, with a suddenness that perked Carlos’ interest.

“Hello,” she said, to the open doorway.

“Good evening, dear,” said a warm voice, all at once both familiar and not, “I’m looking for a man named Carlos. Is he here?”

“Uh…” Jill turned to Carlos and fixed him with a look, “yeah. Babe?”

Carlos leaned forward with a grunt, placed his beer down on the table. He followed her to the door, and over one of her slender shoulders, the image of a priest’s habit, black and straight and formal, rolled into his vision. Father Donovan, his weight leaned against a cane, beamed at him in an expression of happiness, of pride; with his free hand he doffed his hat, gray felt, to his chest.

“My, but it’s so very good to see you, son.”

“Father!” Carlos exclaimed, excited and shocked, and wove around Jill to grab the slender, laughing man in a hug that made his bones creak. Father Donovan clapped him on the back, then braced Carlos’ shoulders.

“Oh, this is so wonderful,” he said, his voice shaking, “how very wonderful to see you safe.”

“You got no idea, Father. And Rosie? Debra? Richard?”

“Perfectly fine. _Perfectly_ fine, my dear boy, thank God. And thanks to you.” He peeked around Carlos’ shoulder. “And this is… Jill, yes?”

Carlos turned to Jill: she fixed the priest with one of her warm, dimpled smiles, a flash of charmingly imperfect white teeth. That smile still made Carlos’ heart skip and patter, even now. 

“This is,” Jill said, her eyes flicking to Carlos, “seems you’ve got me at a disadvantage.”

“Jill, this is Father Donovan. He’s the Priest of the church in Raccoon City I told you about. With the bus, remember?”

“Oh!” Jill said; realization rolled over her face. “OH! How are you? Come in, please!”

Father Donovan took a breath in to speak, then shook his head. “I don’t mean to impose. Perhaps some other time, when I am better prepared to be a gracious guest. But I made a promise to you, Carlos, so… here I am.”

“Your necklace. I’ll go get it.” Carlos started to move, and Jill set a stilling hand on his arm. 

“I’ll get it,” she said, “you two catch up.”

She was gone for only a moment, and they discussed so many things in that brief span: Carlos “still” working for the government (which was true, this time), where the refugees had settled (just north of Indianapolis).

“So… not that I ain’t grateful you’re here, but… how’d you find us?” Carlos said, leaned on the doorway with his arms crossed.

“I saw her, on television. The trial.”

Carlos groaned and closed his eyes in a wince.

Father Donovan nodded. “Very unpleasant business. I saw her name: Jill Valentine, it said, former Raccoon City police. And when I thought about where I knew that name from, I saw you in the crowd, watching her with such concern. From that… Washington, D.C., I surmised. And from there, it was…” he laughed, “a matter of combing the phone book, honestly. I figured if I found her, well… you wouldn’t be far behind, if you’ll forgive me saying so.” 

“I’m impressed. You ever thought about bein’ a detective?”

“Well… I do try. She was very brave. They were not easy on her.”

“Bravest person I know, Father.” Carlos’ smile faded, remembering those long, helpless, furious days. Their struggles had only recently begun to fade, and he was glad Jill was out of the room for the discussion of it — it was still too fresh, even now.

Jill returned with the necklace cupped in a small hand. She looked at it with a smile, then passed it to Carlos.

“You got no idea how much of a relief this is,” Carlos said, dangling the chain into the Priest’s outstretched, waiting hand. “Been waitin’ on one of those dudes with the big hats to break my kneecaps, any day now.”

Father Donovan looped the necklace around his neck with a laugh. “We normally reserve that sort of thing for missing Christmas mass. Thank you, my son, for keeping it safe. And my dear,” he returned his hat to atop his head, his eyes on Jill, “this is a good man. Please take care of him.”

“I will,” she said, and gave Carlos a look that was both somehow warm and far away, as if she’d stepped back and viewed him in a new light. “Take care, Father.”

Father Donovan turned and walked away, and though he leaned his weight on a cane, his steps were easy and light. That chill Autumn day, as the rain fell soft on leaves faded gold and cinnamon-red, was the last time either of them saw him.

Jill pushed the door shut with her backside, stepped backwards against it. “Now where is this familiar from? Necklace delivery?” 

Forgotten, a pot on the stove began to bubble and shake, spilling foam and steam. Carlos took off in a jog towards it.

“Hey, when I brought yours back, I seem to remember a _lot_ more sexiness happening.”

“That’s true.”

“I mean, _a lot_.”

“Uh huh.” Jill rolled her eyes at him; he couldn’t see her but he could tell from her voice. The eyeroll was as much a part of her vocabulary as it was a physical gesture. Then she was quiet, thoughtful. 

“Babe,” she said, and Carlos looked at her from where he was taste testing a spaghetti noodle for softness. She joined him in the kitchen. “Do you know who Saint Jude is? The Saint on the necklace?”

Carlos’ face was blank. “There’s more than one? He just said it was for protection.”

“Ah,” Jill said, and dropped the topic. She hugged him from behind while he worked, her face against the flat of his back. “Just curious.”

***

Later that night, Jill slept beside him, the silver moonlight pooled on her bare shoulder. The name she spoke earlier swirled over and over in Carlos’ mind, and he was unable to sleep. He got up, careful not to wake or jostle her. She slept deeply these days, most of the time through the night. It was a strange victory that Carlos took as a sign of difficulties passed, of triumphant returns of peace and normalcy that had been stolen, but one that Jill refused to talk about. Carlos didn’t push, but he was proud of her.

He moved in shifts and degrees until he was sure he was clear of the bed, slipped into his boxer shorts discarded on the floor and crept out to the living room and sat in front of their… well… her computer. He connected to the Internet, checking to make sure the quiet, squalling tones of the phone line taking hold didn’t stir Jill in her sleep. 

Carlos typed the name into the bar a the top of the screen the way she’d shown him, and ate forkfuls of cold spaghetti while he waited for the selected website to populate in chunks and fits of information. He put his food down, adjusted his sitting position, and leaned in to read.

_Saint Jude, sometimes known as Saint Jude Thaddeus, was one of the original apostles of Christ... He was known for preaching the gospel in particularly difficult circumstances. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes._

Carlos paused, the spaghetti cold and solid in his mouth. He forced himself to swallow it, then wiped his face.

Carlos looked back over his shoulder to where Jill slept, and half-expected her to be gone. She was still, the brown shag of her hair across her eyes, her chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep.

He returned the food to the fridge, turned off the computer, and joined her. Her warmth against him was a reassurance; as he did so often since those unseasonably hot days in the Autumn of 1998, he leaned in close to listen to her breathe. To be certain.

“You okay?” She mumbled, half asleep, and groped for his face. Carlos took her hand and placed a kiss against it, laid down beside her.

“Always,” he said. “Get some sleep, Supercop.”

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everyone, for reading, for your sweet comments, and for your kudos :) that's the end of story number one in the series. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I'll see you all again with some new material very soon!

**Author's Note:**

> Under and Through is meant as an artistic fill-in for some gaps in the story of Resident Evil 3 Remake. Capcom luckily left quite a bit of potential scenarios for writers to play with, so I'm going to do my best to do them justice, even though they won't compare to seeing the content on-screen. There may also be some artistic liberties taken to make the events make sense, but I promise not to stray too far from the source material.
> 
> Saint Jude focuses on Carlos, and is an artist's interpretation of the 12-hour gap between Jill's battle against Nemesis outside the Clock Tower, and when they are reunited. This is part one of, roughly, four.


End file.
